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Sunday, November 30, 2014

Pippa Bartolotti is the fanatically anti-Israel leader of the Wales Green Party. She stood unsuccessfully for leadership of the Green Party of England and Wales in 2012 in succession to the equally anti-Israel Caroline Lucas, and, again unsuccessfully, for the European Parliament in this year's May elections.

Ms Bartolotti's speeches to the Welsh Greens (see the opening words of one in the link above, for instance) often include references to Israel, despite that having absolutely no relevance to green issues in Wales.
In the video at the foot of this post (a video which consists of a 65-minute demonisation of Israel) Ms Bartolotti centres the narrative of her recent address to an audience in Newport, Gwent, as a "fundraiser evening" for the Gwent Greens, entitled "Why Gaza?" largely on her participation in the "Viva Palestina" convoy of 2010.

Here's one of the many photographs that she shows to her audience; it was taken when the convoy passed through Turin:

When Dan Charbit and his wife, Gaelle Hazan, moved to Montreal from Paris two summers ago, it was meant to be a temporary fix — a year-long attempt for Charbit to reboot his stalled career as a special-effects artist in Quebec’s thriving film and television industry. They agreed to fly home if the experiment failed.

Fourteen months after arriving in Canada, the couple has no desire to return to France. The 43-year-old Charbit, who won an Emmy earlier this year for work on the fourth season of the hit HBO show “Game of Thrones,” started a new job last month as a supervisor at Mokko, a Montreal-based special-effects studio serving the film and television industries. Hazan, 39, has found employment as a construction project manager.

Charbit and Hazan are part of a new wave of French Jews who have resettled in French-speaking Quebec, fleeing France’s dismal unemployment rate, which hit 10.5 percent in September, as well as the shock of anti-Semitism that has reverberated throughout the country in recent months and crested over the summer during waves of anti-Israel demonstrations.

France’s Jewish Community Protection Service reported 527 anti-Semitic incidents in the first half of 2014, compared with 276 in the same period last year. In recent months — and especially in the wake of the most recent Gaza war — there have been incidents of Jews being harassed, even physically assaulted, in the streets, and synagogues and Jewish-owned stores and restaurants being torched. And notably, in 2012, four people, including three children, were killed during a shooting rampage at a Jewish school in Toulouse.

While Israel remains the destination of choice — 5,063 French Jews made aliyah between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, according to the Jewish Agency for Israel, the most from any European country — Quebec, and its largest city of Montreal in particular, is quietly becoming a popular alternative for émigrés.

“I hear and I know of young couples moving to Quebec,” said Serge Cwajgenbaum, the Lyon, France-born secretary general of the European Jewish Congress. “The reason is not necessarily related to the rise of anti-Semitism, but it’s more to find a proper future, in terms of good work, good salaries and a cheaper way of life.” There are some 90,000 Jews in the Montreal metropolitan area. [...]

Monique Lapointe, director of Agence Ometz, Montreal’s primary Jewish social services and resettlement organization, told JTA she has noticed a significant increase in newcomers, especially over the past year. Inquiries, Lapointe said, have poured in through Ometz’s email system and Facebook page — including from French Jews currently living in Israel. “I wouldn’t say it’s a huge number of [immigrants],” Lapointe said. “But it’s a trend. We’ll be anticipating more.”
Lapointe described the average immigrant as single, between the ages of 25 and 35, “very well educated and looking for a new kind of life.”

The wider Montreal Jewish community, Lapointe said, is now in the early stages of crafting a coordinated approach to handle the inflow. Thus far, it has been difficult to track newcomers, she added, partly because French Jews keep looser ties to Jewish community organizations than do their North American counterparts.
“In France, people don’t talk about Jewishness,” Lapointe said. “They’re not used to community organizations. Some will never come to see us. They don’t have this reflex.”[...]

Families with children also reported a fear of anti-Semitism, and anxieties about their ability to practice Judaism safely amid a rise in anti-Semitic rhetoric and attacks.

For Julie Weill, a 31-year-old mother of three, the decision to leave her home in Strasbourg five years ago was prompted by the increasing sense of unease she and her husband, Nathanael, felt as Jews in France. While the modern Orthodox couple was never victimized by anti-Semitism, they heard stories from friends and family, and it was considered dangerous, Weill said, to walk around downtown Strasbourg wearing a yarmulke. [...]
Weill still finds it difficult to let her two boys, who attend a Sephardic Jewish day school, wear yarmulkes in public, an old habit from the family’s life in Strasbourg. But the concern, she acknowledged, is largely “irrational.”

When Europe is experiencing yet again rising tides of hatred and intolerance towards Jews – whatever else it might call it and however it might seek to mask it. It is time for Europe to ask what is wrong with Europe and not what is wrong with the Jews. Europe’s vision of itself is challenged from within and without, and this time around, it seems that many Jews don’t plan to stick around to find out how Europe will resolve the European Question "this time around “.

The Arab world is no different with respect to the “Jewish Question”. It is not about the Jews, and not even about Israel and Zionism, it is about the question of Arab and Muslim identity. And, like Europe before it and, sadly perhaps still today, it is working out its identity, ideologies, and loyalties - initially on the back of the Jews and now on the back of other minorities.

A British delegation visiting the Netherlands says that many young, Dutch Jews feel threatened and want to leave.

John Mann (MP for Labour), says that they visited a Jewish school and were surprised at the number of students who said they wanted to move to Israel. The British delegation couldn't understand why the Dutch government didn't deal with the issue.

Following the murders in Jerusalem enabled by the constant Palestinian incitement to kill Jews, this blog will wait until one European country will step forward and condemn the PA for its incitement.

It is not enough to ask the PA to stop inciting.

It is not enough to condemn the terror attacks caused by such incitement.

European leaders must make it clear to the PA that incitement to kill Jews is unacceptable. That such incitement will mean no support for Palestinian aspirations for statehood.Until then, European leaders are encouraging Palestinians to kill Jews.

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Counting the days until one European country will step forward and condemn the PA for its incitement.

It is not enough to ask the PA to stop inciting.

It is not enough to condemn the terror attacks caused by such incitement.

European leaders must make it clear to the PA that incitement to kill Jews is unacceptable. That such incitement will mean no support for Palestinian aspirations for statehood.Until then, European leaders are encouraging Palestinians to kill Jews.

The France Israël Dijon association had organised a conference on Sunday November 23, on "Islam and the Israel question". Imam Hassen Chalgoumi, Elad Ratson of the Israel embassy and Pastor Jean Fauvel were scheduled to speak.

Islamists protesters disrupted the debate and in order to safeguard the securty of both the speakers and the audiance, were left with no choice other than stop the event.

Monique Thébautlt, who chairs the association said that it was intolerable that in France, the country of the rights of men and of the citizens, a conference had to be called off and tolerance censored to protect the friends of the French democracy and the Republic.

Counting the days until one European country will step forward and condemn the PA for its incitement.

It is not enough to ask the PA to stop inciting.

It is not enough to condemn the terror attacks caused by such incitement.

European leaders must make it clear to the PA that incitement to kill Jews is unacceptable. That such incitement will mean no support for Palestinian aspirations for statehood.Until then, European leaders are encouraging Palestinians to kill Jews.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Israel has demanded that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) take action against one of its members, Turkey, after learning that the country allowed the Gaza-based Palestinian terror group Hamas to set up operational headquarters in Istanbul.

No award to organizations shining international light on Palestinian human-rights violations.

B'Tselem, the prominent Israeli human-rights advocate, was awarded the 2014 Stockholm Human Rights Award, the International Legal Assistance Consortium and two major bar associations said.

"B’Tselem has shone international light on human-rights violations in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, providing a voice to victims and calling for accountability," the ILAC, the Swedish Bar Association and the International Bar Association said in a statement.

"It is commendable that B’Tselem has so tirelessly fought to uphold human rights in an environment where its criticism has not always been welcome."

For the second time this year, the British government is reviewing arms export licenses to Israel “to ensure equipment could not be used in a way that would breach international law.” Judging from this Reuters snippet, it may be a waste of time:

The earlier August review had found that the “vast majority” of exports licensed for Israel were not for items that could be used by Israeli forces in Gaza, [a government spokeswoman] added.

When the tiny Jewish community in Trondheim, Norway, arranged a Jewish culture festival recently, they felt the need to emphasize that the festival had nothing to do with Israel.

(...)

For anyone with raised eyebrows, let me be clear: I may have made the same choice if I were in the program committee. Misperceptions of Jewish culture, religion, and history are widespread in Norway, and the Jewish community in Trondheim are housed in probably the most fortified building in the city. There is an urgent need to demystify Yiddishkeit, even if it means kowtowing to widespread BDS impulses in Norway and especially Trondheim.

The separation between anti-Israeli and antisemitic tendencies in Norway is encapsulated in the often-repeated slogan that “Norwegian Jews should not be held accountable for Israel’s policies.”

This slogan is rarely parsed for its true meaning: What would “accountable” mean in this case? Is there any case, ever, for collectively holding a minority group, in any way “accountable” for anything? Is the slogan supposed to suggest an act of tolerance, or charity, evidence of laudable but optional virtue? If someone decided to hold Norwegian Jews accountable for Israeli policies, what would that actually entail?

Palestinian officials, from both Hamas and Fatah, regularly incite their populace to kill Jews.

As a rule, the West responds by pretending such incitement does not exist.

Incitement kills Jews.

Incitement by PA officials kills Jews worldwide.

European leaders speak strongly about antisemitic incitement in their own countries, but at the same time, European leaders support the PA.

I am therefore introducing a new feature on this blog. I will count the days until one European country will step forward and condemn the PA for its incitement.

It is not enough to ask the PA to stop inciting.

It is not enough to condemn the terror attacks caused by such incitement.

European leaders must make it clear to the PA that incitement to kill Jews is unacceptable. That such incitement will mean no support for Palestinian aspirations for statehood.Until then, European leaders are encouraging Palestinians to kill Jews.

The black inscription was discovered by the staff of the Limud Center for Torah Studies on their office building in Potapovsky side-street. A spokesperson for the Russian Jewish Congress (RJC) said that the inscription read as follows: "This is a Zionists' lair. Get out!"

The editors say as follows: "If Israel constitutionalizes a distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish residents, it will mean that Israeli Arabs will have a formal status as second-class citizens in their own country". It could even get to the point where Israel will have an apartheid regime.

I'll spare you the details, because the editors obviously haven't read the law or know what it's about. I suppose they really don't care.

As long as they can blame Israel of discriminating against Arabs, all is good, right?

What Aftenposten doesn't realize is that Israel is already a Jewish state, just like Norway is (gasp) a Norwegian state. The debate is not on whether to make Israel into a Jewish State, it's how to preserve it as one.

When Aftenposten say they're against Israel as a Jewish State, what they're saying is that they're against the two state solutions. They're against one state for the Jews and one state for the Palestinians.

Since we know they favor a Palestinian state, I wonder what that leaves for the Jews.

Barcelona High Court Judge Santiago Vidal said in the November-December edition of the local Delta magazine that the "facts indicates" that within three years a Catalan state could establish independence through "legal, political and peaceful means."

Without initial membership in the European Union, an independent Catalan state could not appeal to the Central Bank of Europe to finance its debts, said Vidal, a member of a pro-Catalan independence expert group.
"But there is a solution for this," Vidal said in the interview adding that "another state with solvency, basically speaking of Israel and Germany, will serve as our temporary bank."

Vidal downplayed the interviewer's doubts over whether it was "risky" to believe Israel would back a country seeking independence, given the Palestinian issue.
He stated that "the Palestinian issue is characterized by violence. Whereas, the Catalan issue is characterized by civic lessons, pacifism and the doing of good things that we are giving to the whole world. And this is something the Israelis like very much."

Leicester City Council is proposing to boycott Israel after a motion was put forward condemning it for “continuing to ignore and breach international law” and “continuing its occupation of Palestinian territories”.

Spinney Hills Councillor Mohammed Dawood, who travelled to the West Bank in September, proposed that the council boycott Israeli products deriving from the settlements “in so far as it is legal”.

Mayor of Leicester Sir Peter Soulsby said: “The situation in the West Bank is not unlike that of apartheid in South Africa and nobody would argue we were not right to condemn that as an authority.”

Palestinian officials, from both Hamas and Fatah, regularly incite their populace to kill Jews.

As a rule, the West responds by pretending such incitement does not exist.

Incitement kills Jews.

Incitement by PA officials kills Jews worldwide.

European leaders speak strongly about antisemitic incitement in their own countries, but at the same time, European leaders support the PA.

I am therefore introducing a new feature on this blog. I will count the days until one European country will step forward and condemn the PA for its incitement.

It is not enough to ask the PA to stop inciting.

It is not enough to condemn the terror attacks caused by such incitement.

European leaders must make it clear to the PA that incitement to kill Jews is unacceptable. That such incitement will mean no support for Palestinian aspirations for statehood.Until then, European leaders are encouraging Palestinians to kill Jews.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Jewish peers [Baroness Deech, Lord Mitchell, Lord Palmer, Emeritus Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks and Lord Leigh] have highlighted what they said was the hypocrisy of singling out Israel for blame in the ongoing troubles of the Middle East.
They voiced concerns over the focus on Israel’s actions in Gaza despite the growth of Islamic State, the continuing civil war in Syria, and Russian belligerence in Eastern Europe.

Labour’s Lord Mitchell led the defence of Israel during a four-and-a-half-hour debate in the Lords on Thursday.
The session included repeated attacks by former Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Tonge on what she called the “dangerous pro-Israel lobby”.

Lord Mitchell said: “Around the world, atrocities are being committed and we all wring our hands and do precious little, but when Israel alone defends herself, everybody goes ballistic. At best it can be called hypocrisy, and at worst it is called something else.”

He said he agreed with actress Maureen Lipman’s criticisms of his own party and its leader Ed Miliband on foreign policy.
“When we see demonstrations in the streets of London which are pro-Hamas with a nasty element of antisemitism thrown in, it beggars belief,” he said.

“When I see my good friend the MP Luciana Berger receive death threats from antisemitic Twitter trolls for her position on Israel, it shows where all this can lead.

“I ask this question: if the demonstrators are so concerned about countries that commit crimes against humanity, why do they not demonstrate against countries which make no secret of their barbarism?”

The parents association of a Jewish school in Antwerp demanded management fire a teacher who made an apparent anti-Semitic statement on Facebook.

The parents made the demand in a letter they wrote earlier this week to Moshe Mund, principal of the Jesode Hatora – Beth Jacob school in Antwerp, the Belgian Jewish monthly and news website Joods Actueel reported Sunday.

In the letter, the parents requested Mund fire Nathalie van Parys, a teacher at the school, who wrote on her Facebook account about parents of children attending the publicly-funded Jewish school.

“They are mega-racists themselves,” she wrote in commenting about an article that concerned the $1,000 that parents at her school and others are required to pay annually for security.

In her Flemish-language post, van Parys used the word “volk,” which means ethnicity, nation or people. “The most difficult and unworldly people I know,” she wrote.

European Parliament Member Bastiaan Belder of the Netherlands has urged the parliament to hold a debate on anti-Semitism. "It's a shame that this has not been done before,'' he said.

(...)

MP Belder deplored the situation in which ''living in fear is almost normal life for Jews in Europe,'' and denounced what he called the ''Israelisation'' of anti-Semitism. Several speakers stressed that it is dangerous these days to wear a Star of David or a yarmulke in the streets of Europe.

The European nations claim to stand for Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité - freedom, equality, and brotherhood – but nothing could be farther from the truth.

I often hear European leaders proclaim that Israel has the right to exist in secure borders. That’s very nice. But I have to say – it makes about as much sense as me standing here and proclaiming Sweden’s right to exist in secure borders.

When it comes to matters of security, Israel learned the hard way that we cannot rely on others – certainly not Europe.

In 1973, on Yom Kippur – the holiest day on the Jewish calendar - the surrounding Arab nations launched an attack against Israel. In the hours before the war began, Golda Meir, our Prime Minister then, made the difficult decision not to launch a preemptive strike. The Israeli Government understood that if we launched a preemptive strike, we would lose the support of the international community.

As the Arab armies advanced on every front, the situation in Israel grew dire. Our casualty count was growing and we were running dangerously low on weapons and ammunition. In this, our hour of need, President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, agreed to send Galaxy planes loaded with tanks and ammunition to resupply our troops. The only problem was that the Galaxy planes needed to refuel on route to Israel.

The Arab States were closing in and our very existence was threatened – and yet, Europe was not even willing to let the planes refuel. The U.S. stepped in once again and negotiated that the planes be allowed to refuel in the Azores.

The government and people of Israel will never forget that when our very existence was at stake, only one country came to our aid – the United States of America.

Israel is tired of hollow promises from European leaders. The Jewish people have a long memory. We will never ever forget that you failed us in the 1940s. You failed us in 1973. And you are failing us again today.

Every European parliament that voted to prematurely and unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state is

giving the Palestinians exactly what they want - statehood without peace. By handing them a state on a silver platter, you are rewarding unilateral actions and taking away any incentive for the Palestinians to negotiate or compromise or renounce violence. You are sending the message that the Palestinian Authority can sit in a government with terrorists and incite violence against Israel without paying any price.

The first E.U. member to officially recognize a Palestinian state was Sweden. One has to wonder why the Swedish Government was so anxious to take this step. When it comes to other conflicts in our region, the Swedish Government calls for direct negotiations between the parties – but for the Palestinians, surprise, surprise, they roll out the red carpet.

State Secretary Söder may think she is here to celebrate her government’s so-called historic recognition, when in reality it’s nothing more than an historic mistake.

The Swedish Government may host the Nobel Prize ceremony, but there is nothing noble about their cynical political campaign to appease the Arabs in order to get a seat on the Security Council. Nations on the Security Council should have sense, sensitivity, and sensibility. Well, the Swedish Government has shown no sense, no sensitivity and no sensibility. Just nonsense.

The 42-year-old works as a teacher in a small Hungarian city near Budapest. For 10 years, she's been married to a Jewish man. The marriage that has greatly affected the relationship with her father.

(...)

In our small city, the farmer's market is a main meeting place for old, right-wing men. They meet, exchange their views and theories, and work themselves up. My dad used to go there, too. One day he came to our house with a message from his friends: they said, that it could very well happen, that one day, two or three of our windows would be broken and that one day I would collect the bones of my husband on the street.

And then, on another day, he yelled: "A dirty Jew is not going to inherit anything from me!" He disinherited me because of my marriage. We’re not speaking anymore.

Palestinian officials, from both Hamas and Fatah, regularly incite their populace to kill Jews.

As a rule, the West responds by pretending such incitement does not exist.

Incitement kills Jews.

Incitement by PA officials kills Jews worldwide.

European leaders speak strongly about antisemitic incitement in their own countries, but at the same time, European leaders support the PA.

I am therefore introducing a new feature on this blog. I will count the days until one European country will step forward and condemn the PA for its incitement.

It is not enough to ask the PA to stop inciting.

It is not enough to condemn the terror attacks caused by such incitement.

European leaders must make it clear to the PA that incitement to kill Jews is unacceptable. That such incitement will mean no support for Palestinian aspirations for statehood.Until then, European leaders are encouraging Palestinians to kill Jews.

Monday, November 24, 2014

A 22-year old Israeli tourist was attacked in Charlottenburg (Berlin) by four men. The tourist passed the men, who then turned and followed him for a short distance before they attacked by punching and kicking him.

On October 22nd, Abdul-Rahman Al-Shaludi drove into a group of passengers standing at a Jerusalem train stop. A 3-month old baby and a young woman were killed in the attack.

The home of the murderer's family was now destroyed.

NRK chose to report about it with the following headline: "Son drove over a baby - Israeli forces destroy mother's home".

He didn't murder a baby. He drove over one. It happens.

The article starts with the murderer's mother telling how horrible it was to have her home destroyed. Then it goes into a discussion of whether it's a war crime. Finally, we get to the reason why the house was destroyed. Way down at the bottom of the article: Israel says it's a terror attack, there were several similar attacks at the time, but the mother disagrees.

According to NRK a baby and a man were killed. They can't even get the details of the victims rights.

"Violence will only lead to more violence," warns the mother.

And NRK highlights that. Because killing innocent Jews is not violence that leads to more violence. Trying to deal with a wave of Palestinians attacking innocent Jews is.

I could never understand why they were called the Liberal Democrat party, but unequivocally failed to support the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.

Another foul message from Bradford MP David Ward, after the terrorist attack on a shul in Jerusalem on Tuesday, was the final straw for me. He has made repeated statements that I, and many Jewish News readers, would consider anti-semitic. Ward has received almost no sanction from his party previously, and nothing will happen to him this time either. As a result, I took the difficult step to leave the party.

As recently as May I was a candidate in the Childs Hill Ward of Barnet, which includes bits of Golders Green. Not surprisingly many Jewish residents of the area refused to vote for me or my fellow Jewish candidates, because they believed our party to be anti-semitic.

Not anti-zionist, not-anti Israel, but anti-semitic. How did a centrist, mainstream, political party get itself into such situation?

There is a perception, if not a widespread understanding, that anything to do with Jews and everything to do with Israel is acutely political. Throughout its recorded history and deeply divided textual historicity, questions of critical substance, reliability, ideology and theology abound. They may be reviewed, redacted, reformed or reaffirmed, but whichever way the Chosen People and the Promised Land are configured, theology becomes politics and politics is theological. You put a bunch of Jews in a synagogue in Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel, and the business of shul becomes a political process because Israel’s existence and Jerusalem’s status are problems awaiting international resolution. Their slaughter is tragic, but it may be construed as a justifiable political act by the oppressed people of Palestine because Israel cannot be conceived apart from its self-belief: there is no Israeli politics apart from its defining theological self-presentation.

It is quite astonishing moral turpitude to equate a blatant act of terrorism against worshipping Jews with Israeli national self-preservation. It is sickening indeed that the Palestinian “madness” is excused on the grounds of international indifference and the “failure..to deal with Israel”. Deal how? Do what? On what legal basis? With what equitable moral justification? [...]

To slaughter praying Jews in their shul for no other reason than that they are Jews praying in their shul is not a madness which can be blamed on the indolence of the international community. Nor is it equivalent to any protest made on Temple Mount. It is an insufferable act of evil of the subversive sort to which Israel has long been accustomed, and Jews have chronically endured. Slaughter in the synagogue is just politics as usual. That is the characteristic deficiency and true failure of the international community.

Ten years ago the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe convened a conference on European anti-Semitism. Last week it met to assess what had happened in the past decade. The signs are not good.
While a good part of the meeting was dedicated to official presentations by the participating nations, it was what one heard in the hallway over coffee that was most significant. At one point the White House delegation, of which I was part, met with representatives of an array of European Jewish communities. What we heard left me shaken. [...]

But in addition to the physical assault another attack is occurring. But for the fact that it does not take lives or break bones (no small thing), its long-term consequences may be more profound. Jews face an inner spiritual and psychological assault. Young people described being Jewish as having become a negative, a burden. “We are continuously on the defensive. It’s depressing.” Guy, a young Dutchman, recalled that not long ago a bunch of his Jewish friends gathered to celebrate his birthday. “What,” he asked us with an ironic smile, “do a group of young men talk about when they gather to drink beer and enjoy themselves? The Holocaust, anti-Semitism, and insecurity.”

In certain countries children who attend Jewish schools are warned — if not “forbidden” — from wearing anything that would single them out as Jews. No school insignias on the book bags, no school symbols on their jackets, no kippot. Nothing.
Many Jews feel abandoned by former allies. Jewish groups, both on campus and in the broader community, have long participated in coalitions of human rights organizations.

“The problem is,” a young Belgian Jew observed, “that these human rights groups don’t consider Jews to be ‘victims.’ We may not face job discrimination. But we face violence.” Even after four Jews were murdered at the Brussels Jewish museum, some European human rights activists dismissed anti-Semitism as “only words” and of no real importance. Some of their colleagues even suggested that this all happened “because of Israel,” i.e. it was justified. “In short,” one young woman observed, “we have no allies.” [...]

But there are also the European cultural elites, most of whom have remained decidedly silent as this scourge grows. Situated on the political left, they are critical of Israel and have conflated anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hostility. They seem unconcerned that segments of Europe are on the path to once again becoming Judenrein. One would think that but seventy years after the Holocaust the possibility would horrify them.

Some Jews, unsure that they have a “future” in Europe are leaving countries where generations of their families have lived. They head to Israel, London, the United States, and Canada. Their friends predict: “They will never come back.” Many will probably stay put — emigrating is not an easy task — but will become “invisible Jews.” Young Jews repeatedly spoke of their contemporaries who “are going underground.” Students feel it increasingly uncomfortable to say “I’m Jewish.” They disengage from campus Jewish life.

French satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné has reported that Benoît Hamon, a French politician, member of the Socialist Party and former the Minister for Education, has advised that the best way of attracting back Muslim voters (euphemistically named as "banlieues et quartiers") into the party's fold would be for the Socialist-led governement to recognise the state of Palestine.

Benoît Hamon believes that French Muslims are disappointed at President François Hollande's friendly stance towards Israel and that the way to placate the large and growing French Muslim minority is to recognise Palestine as a state.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Meanwhile, in Europe the, 'It's not anti-Semitism, it's anti-Zionism' lobby refuse to take responsibility for their role in the increase in attacks against Jews and Jewish properties. Yes certainly, some right-wing groups throw the "anti-Semitism" tag around in order to shut down dialogue on Israeli actions, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Currently anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe is able to rise unopposed because of the "pro-Palestinian" (but only against Israel) Left's refusal to admit that its anti-Israeli campaigning is contributing hugely to it. Yes, I know that accusation will be met with hostility and disbelief. But think about it: when people campaign vociferously against any cultural events that involves Israel, they seek to boycott everything to do with that country and its people. How do you think that makes Jewish people feel? How can you support actions which make Jewish people feel they are outsiders and yet insist that you mean no anti-Semitism? To do so reveals an ignorance of how central Israel is to the identity, religion and culture of Jewish people worldwide.

Gothenburg - In the wake of the horrific terror attack on a Jerusalem synagogue this Tuesday, the rabbi of the Jewish community in Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden, has received deaths threats to burn down his synagogue - with him inside of it.

(...)

"What a wonderful day! Four of your satanic murderers were taken from the world, how wonderful! But what a pity that you weren't among them, you lowly pedophile! But soon will come the time when the Gothenburg synagogue will be destroyed to the ground with you inside, and then you too, you pig, will be killed in the eternal fire," read the threatening e-mail.

Now imagine a Jewish kid saying that. And the worldwide condemnation that would follow it. The condemnations from Israeli and Jewish community leaders.

I don't expect much from Arabs, but it hurts me when this type of talk is accepted by the Western world. If you accept a kid saying "Jews should be killed" in Jerusalem, then you accept it in Paris and Berlin too.

A top Turkish official rejected the wishes of a provincial governor whose anger at Israel led him to call for turning a local synagogue into a museum.

The northwestern governor of the province of Edirne, Dursun Sahin, told reporters that because of the recent Israeli “raid” on al-Aksa mosque in Jerusalem, he ordered the historical Buyuk Synagogue, built in 1907, to be turned into a museum, the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News reported.

“When those bandits blow winds of war inside al-Aksa and slain Muslims, we build in their synagogues,” Sahin said.

“I say this with a huge hatred inside me. We clean their graveyards, send their projects to boards. The synagogue here will be registered only as a museum, and there will be no exhibition inside it.”

French-German Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a revolutionary who first came to proeminence as a student agitator at the Paris barricades in 1968 and former Member of the European Parliament for the Greens, is very popular in France (more so than in Germany) and is a commentator on the Europe 1 radio station.

He never misses an opportunity to bash Israel and did so yet again when interviewed last week by the Belgian newspaper Le Soir.

Cohn-Bendit confided that for a long time he had considered himself to be a Jew as defined by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, i.e. that his Jewish identity was imposed on him by "the other". He then boasted: "But that's wrong... I am a disapora Jew. My citizenship is universal and knows no borders. This explains my position as a European. Israel changes the nature of the Jews. For me, Israel is the end of the Jews. A Jew, as I understand it, is a diaspora Jew".His inspiration?"Marek Edelman, the last survivor of the Warsaw ghetto uprising - he remained in Poland, and he did not become an Israeli".

Dave Whelan, owner of Championship club Wigan Athletic, has apologised after being accused of anti-Semitism and condoning racism for referring to Chinese as “chinks” and saying Jewish people “chase money”.

(...)

He added: “I think Jewish people do chase money more than everybody else. I don’t think that’s offensive at all, it’s telling the truth. Jewish people love money, English people love money, we all love money”.

According to a bi-annual survey by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation more than one in four respondents equated Israel's treatment of Palestinians to Nazi persecution of Jews during World War Two.

When asked in September whether they believed that because of their actions in Gaza Jews were partly responsible for their own persecution, 18 percent of respondents agreed, up from less than 8 percent in June.

Just over 27 percent of those surveyed in September said they agreed with the idea that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians was no different than Nazi persecution of Jews during the Holocaust. In 2004, over 51 percent of respondents agreed with this statement.

One in five respondents, in the survey of 1,915 German citizens, said Israel's policies made Jews less likeable.

An increasingly popular argument, when certain Dutch officials and Muslim commentators discuss Islamic State [IS] jihadists from Europe, is that these jihadists are really no different from European Jews who choose to serve in the Israel Defense Forces [IDF].

In The Netherlands this trend seems to have started when an op-ed, entitled, "Jihad for Israel," written for Al-Jazeera by Columbia University PhD. candidate Hanine Hassan, was translated into Dutch for the website "Wij Blijven Hier," which means "We Are Here To Stay." The website is hugely popular among Dutch youths from a Muslim background. The main thesis of the op-ed was that serving in the IDF should be as punishable as joining IS, as the IDF, too, is a genocidal regime, just like IS.

The truth is that there has never been an Israeli genocide against Palestinians, neither systematic nor acute, and that Israel has done everything in its power apart from not going to war at all -- that is, apart from surrendering -- to spare innocent lives, including the lives of the people trying to destroy it. This argument falls on deaf ears among many Muslims, as well as on those of the youths who support them. Sadly, it was not long before more prominent and mainstream Dutch figures began expressing similar thoughts.

Pieter Broertjes, Labour Party mayor of the Dutch city and "media capital" Hilversum,saidduring a radio interview, when asked what to do about Dutch Muslims travelling to foreign battlegrounds: "They are adults. Dutch citizens went to Israel to fight the British, we didn't stop them either." After his remarks produced a backlash, Broertjes's spokesperson formally apologized, but not Broertjes himself, although he did comment on his self-described "clumsy" comparisonduring later interviews.

A few months earlier, his Labour Party colleague, Yasmina Haifi, championed the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, by stating (with a straight face): "ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. It is part of a plan by Zionists who are deliberately trying to blacken Islam's name" -- in other words, part of the supposed "Zionist conspiracy."

Jan Wijenberg, a former Dutch Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Yemen among other places, and known for his fierce anti-Israeli stance, wrote an op-ed that took the comparison even further: "The IS goal is to establish a utopian religious state, just as the Zionists have done."

Thursday, November 20, 2014

I faced so much anti-Semitism at Reading School that I eventually felt I had no option but to leave. I was only 15 or 16 at the time, and being the insecure teen that everyone is at that age, it was completely crushing. It was also quite confusing, because, to my best knowledge, I’m not actually Jewish. Although, of course, if I tried pointing that out I was accused of anti-Semitism. As well as constantly being called “Shylock” and “Jew” by various members of my year (there were around a dozen who took part, in varying degrees), I had money thrown at me as I made my way from one class to another. Once this even happened while I was walking through Reading town centre.

I was also told repeatedly not to eat bacon – or smoky bacon crisps. In a history lesson, someone shouted out that the biggest mistake Hitler made was that he didn’t kill all the Jews, because if he had I wouldn’t be sitting there with everyone.

After a while, so many people were joining in that I lost most of my friends. Although, I wasn’t the only person who faced such abuse. Aside from those who were also bullied, students used the n-word liberally and competed to tell the most racist jokes.

(...)

Aside from almost daily abuse, the most depressing part was that the perpetrators weren’t punished appropriately in my view for what was essentially hate-speech. Instead of being suspended or expelled, many stayed on for sixth form, while I left.

The mayor of a Madrid suburb apologized through a spokesman for using the term “Jewish dog” during her campaign.

The office of Collado Villalba Mayor Mariola Vargas issued the apology on Friday to the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain, or FCJE, in connection with Vargas’ remark during a news conference in which she denied allegations that she has foreign bank accounts and urged listeners to believe her because “I’m no Jewish dog.”

In a development similar to what occurred in the rest of Europe, anti-Semitic incidents in Italy nearly tripled this summer during Israel’s defensive military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, as compared to the summer of 2013. The unsettling information was revealed by Italy’s Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation.

Abdur Raheem Green was a graduate of the Salafist movement in Britain during the 1980s and 90s. He briefly became a jihadist alongside Islamist fighters against the Soviets, in Afghanistan, but he was better known as an Islamist preacher in London, frequently to be found in London's Hyde Park, complaining of the Jewish "stench," or addressing mosque congregations, and encouraging men to hit their wives to "bring them to goodness."
This sort of rhetoric is also heard from other iERA officials, including preachers such as:- Zakir Naik, who has said, "every Muslim should be a terrorist."- Hussein Yee, who openly preaches hatred against Jews, and claims that Jews in America were "happy" when the Twin Towers fell.- Abdullah Hakim Quick, who has called upon God to "clean and purify al-Aqsa from the filth of the Yahood [Jews]" and "clean all of the lands from the filth of the Kuffar [non-believers]."

Both Hussein Yee and Zakir Naik have since been banned from entering the UK, along with Bilal Philips, an American Islamist preacher and additional iERA official, who describes the Taliban as "innocent Muslim people" who did many "positive, good things." He also claims that rape and domestic abuse are permissible in Islam, and advocates the murder of homosexuals. Furthermore, Philips was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Other activists within the local dawah groups affiliated with the iERA echo this rhetoric. Hassan Farooq, a "senior member" of the Newham Dawah Team, praised Hitler and expressed a desire to go "Jewish bashing."

Police have arrested a man in connection with a racially motivated attack in a Jewish area of London.

Tyres on over 40 cars parked in streets in Stamford Hill were slashed in the early hours of Monday morning.A police spokesman said: “We arrested a 21 year old male and he is being held in north London in connection with a series of attack on cars in the area and it is being treated as a racially motivated crime.

He said police believed that the Jewish community had been the target of the attacks.

French blog The Inglorious Basterds has revealed the identity of the author of a Tweet message rejoicing in the murder of 3-month old Haya Zissel Braun Z’al. She is reported to be Sarah Tiziana Jaffrey, a student at the University of Geneva. She is of French-Pakistani origin and daughter of a diplomat.
She wrote on her account 'Justice is coming':

"It makes me happy to look at the face of this small whore. I would have loved to look at the bitch's mug when she died."

Sarah Tiziana Jaffrey

Her Facebook page features three antisemitic groups:

More on her Twitter account:
"What does one say when one sees a Jew? Go back to Auschwitz :)"

"I hope that Ebola spreads everywhere in Israel and that an efficient insect-killer will eradicate all those turds".

According to police, the two suspected Palestinian terrorists, armed with a gun and axes, attacked worshipers after entering a synagogue on Agasi Street in the capital's Har Nof neighborhood. Two police officers quickly arrived to the scene and exchanged fire with the suspects, killing them.

German organizers of a fund-raiser for an Israeli hospital took issue with the performance of an Israeli children’s choir because some of its members live in settlements, and asked the youths to keep quiet about where their homes are located.

(...)

In the run-up to the dinner, which took place at the beginning of the month, the choir was asked to provide information about its members as part of the security preparations.

A few days later German organizers contacted the Israeli coordinators and explained that there was a problem because some of the children were from West Bank settlements.

Planners considered various options including leaving the problematic singers at home, or canceling the performance altogether.

European Jews will get killed because EU supports PA incitement. No condemnation, no demands.

What's the point of having a whole symposium about fighting antisemitism when you support the people who want to kill Jews? I don't get it.

Those European countries that bothered, met just last week at the OSCE conference on antisemitism. There, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, urged Europe to act.

Power urged European leaders to appoint high-level envoys to focus on anti-Semitism; pass hate-crimes legislation, and vigorously pursue and prosecute perpetrators; and uphold the clear distinction between legitimate political protest and anti-Semitism.

But even the US itself does not act.

When it comes to Palestinian antisemitism, incitement and hate, the West stands silent. Oh, sure, they condemn attacks when they occur. But they only condemn the attack itself. They do not condemn the people who incited to the attack.

Europe is upset at Israel for building houses in Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem.

But it does not get upset at the Palestinian leadership that calls for Jewish blood to be spilt.

It's no wonder that Europe can't deal with antisemitism and that its own Jewish residents fear to walk the streets. It's because European leaders accept Jew-hatred by Palestinians. As long as you have a good excuse, we understand that you want to murder innocent people whose only crime was praying in a Jewish synagogue.

The people who rush to recognize Palestine, but who stay silent when the Palestinian government calls to murder Jews, are responsible for today's bloodbath.

A Jewish leader in Antwerp has said the community feels “fragile” after a Charedi man was stabbed on his way to synagogue this weekend.

Yehosha Malik, 31, was attacked by a man who reportedly targeted his victim after exiting a bar early on Saturday morning.
While his assailant has not yet been identified by local police, the wound sustained by Mr Malik was just a centimetre deep, meaning he could leave hospital later that day.

Eli Ringer, honorary chairman of the Forum of Jewish Organisations in Antwerp, said: “The Jewish community is fragile here. There is an unpleasant feeling, and has been for the last few months. People come from certain parts of the world where they don’t like Israel or Jews, and they import their conflict. It's very dangerous and threatening to the Jewish community.”

Mr Ringer added that although nothing has been confirmed, he thought the assault was probably antisemitic: “The presumption is that as the young man was studying to become a rabbi and didn’t do anything, and his attacker didn’t know him, the chances are big that it was antisemitic.”
The Jewish community in the city, which is home to around 20,000 Jews, has requested local police to supply more protection and a larger presence in order to stop future attacks.

Monday, November 17, 2014

New surveys conducted in France suggested that Frenchmen of Muslim origin were far likelier to espouse anti-Semitic views than the general population.

In the two surveys, which were conducted in recent months, 74 percent of respondents who self-identified as observant Muslims agreed with the statement that Jews have too much influence on French economics, compared to 25 percent in the general population.

The assertion that Jews control the media received an approval rating of 23 percent in the general population group and 70 percent among practicing Muslims.

A motion calling for Gorey to cease 'all further links' with Israel and its representatives, following the recent Gaza campaign, was carried at Gorey Municipal District's monthly meeting last week, after the majority of Councillors abstained from the vote.

By 'Zionism', I assume they mean 'Jews'. Unless they're talking about the Elders of Zion.

No less than 16 percent of France’s residents think that there is a “Zionist conspiracy on a global scale,” according to results of a survey released Sunday.

Additionally, one in four – 25 percent – also believe that “Zionism is an international organization that seeks to influence the world and society in favor of the Jews,” according to the study conducted on behalf of the Foundation for Political Innovation (Fondapol) on the persistence of anti-Semitic prejudice in French public opinion.